Publishing on March 8, "Guapa", a debut novel from Saleem Haddad, dives into the life of Rasa, a twenty-something-year-old gay man living in an unnamed Arab country, as he negotiates family, societal expectations, queerness, love, police brutality, authoritarianism, decorum, revolution, imperialist narratives, and Islamist extremism—all in the space of twenty-four hours. Throughout Rasa’s journey, the reader is thrown back into the losses, definitions, redefinitions, and rebellions that orbit his life.

In this interview, we speak to Saleem Haddad about the novel’s setting and the political threads woven throughout the novel, including those touching upon questions of language, identity, and narrative.

Displaced Syrian artist and producer Kaan Wafi has been living in Germany for the past two and a half years. Like many Syrians in exile, he is preoccupied with the war and its devastating effects on the country where over 300 000 people have been killed, over 4 million have become refugees and over 7 million are internally displaced.

Wafi’s album Pieces From Exile is a pastiche of clips from Syrian activists and survivors of war mixed with hip hop beats and samples from traditional Syrian music. The album was done in memory of those lost, abducted and displaced by the war.